Big Order

(10 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of manga series by the same people who brought you Future Diary.

Characters

Daisy is a weird fairy/hallucination who goes around and turns random people into Orders, which basically means that they get super-powers based on whatever they were wishing for at the time. She seems to be mostly doing this for shits and giggles, as she expects to be entertained by whatever interesting things the Orders will do with their powers. And in that regard, she’s been rather disappointed by…

Eiji, our teenage protagonist, who somehow got powers so incredible that he basically wrecked the world by accident when he got them. Ten years later, the scars are still visible all around, and he’s trying to keep as low a profile as possible. Other compelling reason to never ever use his powers again : his little sister is in the hospital because of his past outburst (and his inner monologue makes it sound like she’s barely got six months to live).

Rin is the pretty new transfer student into Eiji’s class, but of course that’s just a front, because it wouldn’t be a Sakae Esuno story without a sadistic redhead stalking the protagonist and being very creepy indeed. She’s an assassin nominally working for a secret council of weirdoes supposedly running what’s left of the world, and tasked with tracking Eiji down. Of course, since her parents died in the catastrophe, she quickly ditches her recon job and goes straight for the kill. Also, she’s an Order with regenerative powers, so she’s basically immortal.

Eiji spends most of the episode whining and panicking, but Rin straight out stabbing his little sister is the straw that broke the camel back. Together with Daisy putting a big range limiter on his ability (so that he can use it without risk of wrecking the whole world), this spurs him into fighting back. Especially as Daisy clarifies that his power isn’t actually to break stuff. He’s really a reality warper, able to bend the world (and people) around him to his will. (With a range now limited to at best the size of a building.) See, his wish as a kid was patterned after his favourite cartoon character, who was about conquering the world for its own good. So hey, Eiji might as well go and conquer the world… starting with the council of assholes who went after him. And Rin is his first draftee, whether she wants it or not.

Production Values

On the one hand, this is very raw looking indeed ; studio Asread isn’t known for producing polished shows, and this is the case here too. On the other hand, there are some great visuals for the initial catastrophic event, with the world just getting broken and fractured in a very unsettling way.

What did I think of it ?

This was certainly a very rough start. The episode spends most of its runtime being miserable and without much direction, spending more effort on histrionics than coherent storytelling. But it all comes together with the final reveal, which gives its protagonist a much-needed agenda, interesting powers that he’s already using creatively (lol at Rin healing Eiji’s little sister without even noticing it for a while – “Wait, why the heck am I doing this ?”), and dynamics with his supporting cast that promise to be fascinating.

This show is of course very derivative of something like, say, Death Note, but there’s enough energy and ideas here to keep it fresh. I’m willing to watch where it goes for a while.